Anne McHardy Parker
Anne McHardy Parker (1770-1840s) was the wife of
Background
The Parkers were married in 1791. Richard Parker was the son of a grain merchant and he attended Exeter School, giving him a level of education and prestige above his fellow sailors. Anne was the daughter of a Braemar farmer, growing up near Aberdeen, Scotland.
Richard Parker's execution
On 13 June 1797 her husband was taken into custody at
The burials
She asked unsuccessfully for the body, first at the side of the Sandwich, then from the commanding officer of the whole Nore fleet, Vice-Admiral Skeffington Ludwidge. She located the walled and secret graveyard where the Navy had buried her husband, recruited four other women to help her, dug up the coffin, got it over the wall, bribed a dung cart driver to bear it out of the military area, and had it taken to the Hoop and Horseshoe public house in London. Its presence in London led to long queues of people lining up to pay respects or satisfy their curiosity. The Duke of Portland, fearing a public funeral, had the body stolen, but word leaked out and crowds blocked the streets near the workhouse to which it had been taken. At this point, the Home Office succeeded in having the "ex-president" secretly buried at St. Mary Matfelon's church. Anne Parker, however, discovered the location, went to the church and succeeded in having the official Christian ritual for the dead performed.
Finale
Anne Parker died in poverty in London in the 1840s. St. Mary Matfelon was not replaced when destroyed in the German air raids of World War II.
References
The Great Mutiny - James Dugan (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1965)